Many people do not know Jesus.  Many, even today, because they have not heard of him.  Many others because they do not care to know him.  They don’t see why he matters.  It bothers them that he seems to matter so much to others.  Jesus is . . . just a crutch that weak people use to irritate the strong.  Strong people don’t need Jesus.  Strong people don’t need anybody, he cried in his wife’s arms.  Strong people don’t need anything, she said to herself, pouring another glass of wine.  All that talk about sin.  All that talk about God.  All that talk about faith and grace.  Are people still doing that?  What is this grace, anyway?

No one cares to know Jesus, until God opens the way for them to know: until God helps them to see, until He makes them see.  Is He still doing that?  Those who know Jesus, who have received him, welcomed him, and believed in him, are able to do so only because God has made it possible.  He provided a star.  He gave light.  He is still giving light.  He is still opening eyes, opening hearts.  There is hope because there is love.  We know there is love because there is grace.

God is at work.  We wonder where God is at work.  Show me where.  Really.  What is the evidence for God, God who is as the Bible tells us?  To find out, look to those who have faith, who believe in Jesus: there, here, is the evidence for God, for God at work.  Even here, even tonight, among us, in you.  What is God saying?  Grace, and truth; hope and love.

All this talk of grace and truth.  Does truth matter?  Who knows the truth?  Lots of people live by the truths they choose: the lies they like!  Isn’t that just what Christians are doing, too?  Isn’t truth just whatever you happen to believe?  I think there has got to be something true out there.  I want to know it.  I’m tired of lies.  I know all about lies: the lies I get told, the lies I still tell myself, to rationalize, trying to make myself innocent in my own eyes, or at least not guilty.  It’s not something true out there that I want, though, really.  It’s someone.  I want someone true, true all the way through.  Who can tell me the truth?  Who can show me what is truly true?

What is grace?  Grace is God giving Jesus to people who don’t understand what words like grace are supposed to mean.  Grace is God giving Jesus to people who are used to lies, who just expect lies, anymore.  It doesn’t mean they want lies.  But they don’t know how to get from the lies to what is true.  What’s the way from here to there?  How do you get to that light in the darkness?  Grace.  Grace is being shown how, being given the way.  Have you ever pushed on a door with no success, and then tried pulling it?  We’ve tried our way, but it just doesn’t get us what we really want!  It doesn’t get us that something we need . . . that someone.  Grace is when it occurs to us to try another way: inspiration!  God.  At work.  In you.

To get to that light, shining in the darkness, have light with you.  What light?  What light do we have?  The light God gives us, that light we remember, here, tonight.  The light that we have been hearing about and singing about and longing for, in those deep places in the heart, those darkened places in the mind.  We are celebrating that light.  That light is hope: hope for truth, hope for a way, hope for us.  In only a few minutes, you’ll be holding a reminder, a sign of that light: you’ll hold it close to your heart.  You will see by that light.  That means something.

Jesus is the light with us.  The Holy Spirit is the flame that cannot be extinguished.  Tonight is about giving, about love.  Tonight is about receiving, about love.  We delight in giving.  The giving has cost us something: our wallets are a bit lighter by this point, but we don’t mind the cost so much because we delight in the happiness of those who receive.  We don’t mind the cost so much, because we like to give.  We love to give, because what we’re really giving, deep down, is love.

God delights in giving.  The giving cost Him; I’d like to talk about that, too.  I won’t, tonight.  The cost was worth it to God, because He loves to give, because what He is giving, giving you, tonight and always, deep down, is love.

For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  He is here.  The gift is given.  Tonight, we also will give.  It is good to give.  To receive is a blessing.  To give is a blessing.  Now is the time to give.  Give Jesus, hand to hand, heart to heart.

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are God’s judgments and how inscrutable God’s ways!  For from God and through God and to God are all things.  To God be glory forever!